Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen From: davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Towards A Meaningful Performance Measure Message-ID: <7774@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 11:38:02 EST Article-I.D.: steinmet.7774 Posted: Thu Nov 5 11:38:02 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 03:45:59 EST References: <861@winchester.UUCP> <2993@phri.UUCP> <864@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <3806@sol.ARPA> <1714@pdn.UUCP> Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY Lines: 33 Keywords: benchmarks In article <1714@pdn.UUCP> alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy) writes: [ ... ] |The installed base of 11/780's is puny by comparison to the popular |micros. Why not choose one of them? I suggest the IBM PS/2 Model 60 as |the baseline. Most systems will be faster, so that the relative |performance ratios will mostly be above 1. Most benchmarkers will be |able to get access to such a machine. Most readers will have some idea |of the real performance of the baseline machine. And the machine is |likely to be around for a long time, so that familiarity with it will |not be short-lived. And even after its demise, people will remember it. I like your idea. However the 60 is pretty low as a starting point, and very limited. Perhaps a model 80 would be better, since it represents something current practice. Perhaps running AIX or Xenix/386, since the 32 bit performance is about double the 16 bit performance (as I measured it, using Xenix/[23]86). This also allows benchmarks on paging, which the 60 doesn't. |As for operating system, I suggest an average based on standalone, |UNIX V and the most widely used OS on that system, if that is not |UNIX V. UNIX V is clearly headed for standard status. Leave UNIX out |if it's not available. I also strongly urge against UNIX utilities as |benchmarks: not everyone uses or can use UNIX (a sacrilege, I know). I guess I would rather see the most common UNIX version, rather than specifying something which raises strong feelings. For some machines I would like to see all UNIX versions, such as the RT/PC or VAX. I would rather see both sets of numbers, since I probably will have to choose one or the other. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me